The poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia” is the favorite brainchild of N.A. Nekrasov. He worked on it for 14 years, but due to censorship attacks, he never saw the full edition of the work. The poem was published only after his death in 1881. Despite the fairy tale elements of the narrative, the author touches upon a rather acute problem of the position of the peasants of post-reform Russia.
The abolition of serfdom in 1861 did not improve their lives. According to it, the peasants had to buy land plots from the landlords at exorbitant prices or be civilian employees, that is, just as before, they were laborers for the owner. Seeing this situation of the disadvantaged peasants, N.A. Nekrasov is acutely worried about them. The result is this poem. Folklore, on the other hand, helps the writer, firstly, to disguise the main goal of writing a work, secondly, to create a beautiful artistic creation, and thirdly, it enables the author to show mystical pictures of Russian reality.
The poem begins with a fabulous opening:
What year do you expect
In what land guess
On the pillar path
7 men got together.
The number 7 is also, apparently, not accidental. This number is often found in Russian proverbs. Further, the author lists the names of the villages from which the peasants were born:
tightened province,
County Terpigorev,
empty parish,
From adjacent villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina.
Gorelova, Neelova -
Crop failure too...
These names hint to the reader at the bleak life of the inhabitants of these villages.
The poem is related to a fairy tale by a large number of constant epithets: “violent winds”, “red sun”, “clear eyes”, “good fellow”, “fierce grief” and others, as well as repetitions: “pleasantly happy”, “full full." Colloquial words (vtemyashitsya, head, otkudova) and dialectisms (koknul, lafa, baluster, stibril, yarmonka) bring the reader closer to the common people's life.
Successfully woven into the narrative and a number of fabulous images and objects. This is a talking warbler, who gave the wanderers a self-assembly tablecloth, and a gray bunny, and an echo, as if alive, “went for a walk, walked, went to shout, shout”; and the cunning fox crept up to the peasants and others.
Another folklore genre is songs. With the help of them, the author shows the sad life of the peasant woman Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina. The songs sing about how she endured beatings and humiliation in her husband's family, how she worked from morning to night, not knowing rest; how she protected her family no matter what.
With the help of various signs, Nikolai Alekseevich also shows the negative side of the peasant consciousness. They tend to see the cause of many of their troubles not in the general structure of life, but in the fact that some otherworldly mythical forces interfere with them. For example, they blame the crop failure on a woman who
Clean shirt
Worn at Christmas.
The genre of the legend “About two great sinners” allows the poet to raise on the pages of the work the question of whether it is possible to defeat evil by killing even greater evil.
The former robber Kudeyar, who shed a lot of human blood, repented, but does not find peace. He felt forgiven only after he plunged a knife into the heart of Pan Glukhovsky, who boasted:
In the world I honor only a woman,
Gold, honor and wine.
You have to live, old man, in my opinion:
How many slaves I destroy
I torture, I torture and hang,
And I would like to see how I sleep!
Thus, we can conclude that the great Russian poet N.A. Nekrasov, with the help of folklore genres, managed to create a work depicting the life of the Russian people in all its fullness and diversity.
Updated: 2018-01-16
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The poem “who lives well in Russia” Nekrasov, in his own words, collected “word by word for twenty years.” “I decided to state ... - the poet wrote, everything that I know about the people, everything that I happened to hear from their lips ...”
The genre of this poem is difficult to define. We can say that this is a folk epic of the new time. Outwardly, the plot of the poem looks like this: seven men from different villages asked themselves the question: “Who lives happily, freely in Russia?” In search of an answer, they travel all over Russia, meet people from different classes (priest, landowner, merchant, official, various people from the people). The plot of the work is constructed in such a way as to cover the life of the entire post-reform Russia.
Nekrasov devotes most of the poem to a review of precisely the people's life, because the main character of the work is the Russian people. Throughout the work, the author creates a collective portrait of the Russian people, which consists of a set of central characters (Matryona Timofeevna, Savely, Grisha Dobrosklonov. Ermila Girin), episodic (Agap Petrov, Gleb, Vavila, Vlas, Klim, etc.), "polyphony" crowds (chapter "Feast - for the whole world").
Already in the first chapter of "Pop" large-scale pictures of folk life are created. The heroes go out onto the road, and the whole Russian land stretches before their eyes: “Forests, floodplain meadows, Russian streams and rivers ...” Further, this picture is associated with the life of the people: in the spring, rivers flood that flood all the fields, which means they leave the peasant without a harvest . From the priest's story, we learn not only about the life of the clergy in Russia after the abolition of serfdom, but also the plight of most peasant families who are unable to pay the priest for his work.
In the chapter “Rural Fair”, the peasant masses appear before us in all their breadth and multicolor: “There was a brisk trade, With swearing, with jokes, With healthy, loud laughter ...” This describes folk recreation. Popular preferences: a bookstore where people buy popular prints depicting "fat generals", a farce with Petrushka. Here appears the hero Vavila, who drank all the money, but, thanks to the generosity of the "master", bought a gift for his beloved granddaughter.
The chapter "Drunk Night" reveals the revelations of the peasants, shows the hidden side of their life: here is one woman complaining to another about conflicts with her son-in-law; here Olenushka deceived a drunken peasant by eating a gingerbread and running away from him; here is an unfortunate old woman asking a young boy for love. But already here social motives, the themes of the plight of the peasants, begin to appear. Throughout the work, we see pictures of the difficult, impoverished and disenfranchised life of the peasantry. Nekrasov shows that after the abolition of serfdom, the position of the peasantry in Russia almost did not change.
The panorama of people's life is revealed, as it were, gradually, during the peasants' search for the truth. Moreover, the farther the wanderers advance, the more formalized the idea of happiness becomes. With the meeting with Ermila Girin, the image of the people's intercessor is outlined and another condition for happiness is outlined - respect for the people. Savely completes this image: he is a people's avenger and hero. Matrena Timofeevna is the female version of the “happy” with her own interpretation of the problem: “It’s not a matter of looking for a happy woman among women.” At the last stage of the search, we meet with Grisha Dobrosklonov, the most developed and happy, according to Nekrasov. This hero is ready to give his life in the name of the triumph of "honest cause", in the name of improving the life of the people.
The poem "Who Lives in Russia" is full of folklore motifs and images. The plot of the poem is in many ways similar to the folk tale about the search for truth and happiness. The work begins with a peculiar beginning, characteristic of Russian fairy tales and epics: “In what year - count, In what land - guess ...”
There are also folk signs in the poem: “Cuckoo, cuckoo! Bread will sting, You will choke on an ear - You will not cuckle! Often there are riddles in the poem: "No one has seen him, And to hear - everyone has heard, Without a body, but it lives, Without a language - it screams." This work is also characterized by constant epithets and comparisons: "Like a fish in a blue sea." Folklore images also appear in the poem (a self-assembled tablecloth, for example).
NOU "Search"
MOU "Secondary school No. 37 of Omsk"
FOLKLORE MOTIVES IN THE POEM
N.A. NEKRASOVA
"WHO WILL LIVE WELL IN RUSSIA"
Completed by a student of 10 "B" class
Akhmedjanov Askar
Checked by the teacher of Russian language and literature
Sergeeva Tatyana Dmitrievna
Omsk 2002-2003 | | Plan.
Ch. I Introduction.
Ch. II The style of writing a poem.
Ch. III Nekrasov's creative use of folklore motifs in the poem "Who Lives Well in Russia".
1 ch. Using lamentations and songs from book sources.
2 ch. Create your own creations using
folklore style.
3 ch. Use of other types of folklore creativity.
Ch. IV Conclusion.
Ch. V List of used literature.
The topic "Folklore in the work of Nekrasov" has repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers. Nevertheless, I consider it useful to return to it once again. In numerous studies, the attention of researchers was drawn mainly to the study of textual or stylistic coincidences of folklore texts and texts belonging to Nekrasov, to the establishment of "borrowings" and "sources", etc. Until now, however, the topic has not been raised in the literary plan. . After all, we are dealing with an artist-master. It goes without saying that this master artist, a great poetic individual, is at the same time a social figure.
Nekrasov is a poet of revolutionary democracy, and this determines the nature of his poetry. And of course, it would be interesting to explore how it uses
Nekrasov folklore material? What goals does he set for himself?
What kind of folklore material does Nekrasov take (not in the sense of an exact definition of sources, but in the sense of the qualitative, artistic and social characteristics of this material)? What does he do with this material (i.e., with what compositional techniques does he introduce it, to what extent and how does he change it)?
What is the result of his work (because this result may not coincide with the subjective goals of the artist, i.e., the artist may not be able to fulfill his tasks)?
First of all, let us agree that by folklore we will understand the features of traditional oral poetic creativity, and not the features of lively, colloquial peasant speech. When Nekrasov wrote, for example:
Cursing swearing,
No wonder they get stuck
In each other's hair...
Look - they've got it!
Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka,
And two brothers Gubina
Ironing the rights of the hefty,
And everyone screams!
then it was very "folk" from the point of view of an intelligent reader and, of course, quite understandable and accessible to a peasant reader, but there is no need to talk about folklore here: this is not peasant poetry, but a peasant language.
The poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia” is not completely homogeneous in character: if the “Prologue”, the first part, “The Peasant Woman” and “Last Child” are designed almost entirely for the peasant reader, then already in the part “A Feast for the Whole World” there are chapters and episodes presented in a completely different way (this is especially true of chapter IV - “Good time - good songs”). To illustrate this, at least two songs from this part can be compared. In the chapter ("Bitter Time - Bitter Songs") there is such a song ("Corvee"):
Poor, unkempt Kalinushka,
Nothing for him to flaunt
Only the back is painted
Yes, you don’t know behind the shirt ... Etc.
In chapter IV, you can take one of Grisha's songs:
In moments of despondency, oh motherland!
I am thinking ahead.
You are destined to suffer a lot,
But you won't die, I know... Etc.
Two different styles of Nekrasov (relatively speaking, "folk" and
“civilian”), it seems to me, they appear quite clearly here.
However, the poem is mostly written in the "folk" style. In this regard, there is also a wide use of folklore in it.
Folklore and fairy-tale material, of course, entered the plot basis of the poem. So, a talking warbler, interfering in a dispute between men and promising a ransom for a chick, is a fabulous image. A fairy tale motif is also a self-assembled tablecloth, although its use in Nekrasov's poem is completely original: it is supposed to feed and clothe the peasants during their wanderings.
The fabulous form of plot development chosen by Nekrasov opened up the widest possibilities for him and made it possible to give a number of vivid realistic pictures of Russian reality; the "fabulousness" did not interfere with realism in essence and at the same time helped to create a series of sharp clashes (otherwise it would have been very difficult to carry out, for example, a meeting between the peasants and the tsar).
In the future, the actual folklore material Nekrasov especially widely uses in the part "Peasant Woman". However, various folklore genres are not used equally. Particularly widely used here are, firstly, funeral lamentations (according to Barsov's collection "Lamentations
Northern Territory”), secondly, the wedding lamentations of the bride, and thirdly, lyrical family songs. Nekrasov takes mainly works of a lyrical nature, because it was in these works that the moods, feelings and thoughts of the peasantry were most clearly and effectively reflected.
But Nekrasov often turns these lyrical works into an epic narrative, moreover, he fuses them into one whole, thereby creating such a complex complex that does not and cannot exist in folklore.
Nekrasov inserts some songs into the narrative precisely as songs and sometimes cites them with absolute accuracy. Thus, Chapter I (“Before Marriage”) is built almost entirely on wedding lamentations from Rybnikov's collection. In this regard, it is appropriate to draw the following parallel, which allows us to draw some conclusions.
Nekrasov's chapter ends like this:
The dear father ordered.
Blessed by mother
Parents put
To the oak table
With the edges of the spell poured:
"Take a tray, stranger guests
Take it with a bow!”
For the first time I bowed -
Frisky legs shuddered;
The second I bowed -
Faded white face;
I bowed for the third
And the will rolled down
From a girl's head...
From Rybnikov:
Commanded my sir-father,
Bless my mother...
Parents put
To the oak table in the capital,
To green wine in pourers.
I stood at the oak table, -
There were gilded trays in the runes.
There were crystal cups on the trays,
Drinking green wine in cups
Villains foreign strangers,
These guests are unfamiliar.
And conquered her young head:
The first time I bowed
My volushka rolled off the head,
Another time I bowed, -
My white face faded
The third time I bowed, -
Frisky little legs trembled,
The red girl shamed her kind-tribe ...
Undoubtedly, Nekrasov used this particular text, since the closeness here is quite obvious. But the author did not use the material mechanically.
We see in Nekrasov an extraordinary compression of the entire text by the number of lines. In addition, each line in Nekrasov is shorter than the corresponding folklore line
(for example, Rybnikov’s “To the oak table in the capital”, Nekrasov’s “To the oak table”). This gives Nekrasov's verse greater emotional tension (the folklore meter is slower and more epic) and greater energy (in particular, male monosyllabic clauses used by Nekrasov are important in this respect, while they are not in the folklore text).
The rearrangement made by Nekrasov is characteristic: in the folklore text, at the first bow, the volushka rolled away, at the second, the face faded, at the third, the bride's legs quivered; Nekrasov rearranges these moments
(at first, “frisky legs shivered”, then “the white face faded”, and, finally, “the will rolled off the girl’s head”) and thus gives the presentation great strength and logic. In addition, Nekrasov’s words “And the will” rolled off the girl’s head” (with a strong masculine ending) complete Matrena Timofeevna’s story about the girl’s life, while in folklore lamentation a long continuation goes on, which weakens the meaning of this motif. This is how the master artist gives great strength and significance to the material to which he refers.
In chapter II (“Songs”), the song material is presented precisely in the form of songs illustrating the position of a married woman. All three songs (“Standing at the court breaks legs”, “I sleep as a baby, dozes” and “My hateful husband rises”) are known from folklore records (in particular, analogies to the first and third are in Rybnikov’s collection, to the second - in Shane). The first song is apparently built on the basis of Rybnikov's text, but has been significantly reduced and polished. Nekrasov gave the second song, apparently, quite exactly (or almost exactly), but without the last verse, in which the husband affectionately addresses his wife: thereby, Nekrasov's softening of the theme disappears. The third song is again given very accurately, but again without the last part, in which the wife submits to her husband; and here Nekrasov avoids a softening ending. In addition, this song is called a round dance in the records and is a game: the guy portraying the husband jokingly hits the girl-wife with a handkerchief, and after the last verse, he lifts her from her knees and kisses (the game ends with a traditional round dance kiss). Nekrasov, on the other hand, gives this song as an everyday one and reinforces with it the story of Matryona Timofeevna about the beatings of her husband. This clearly shows Nekrasov's desire to show precisely the plight of the peasantry and, in particular, the peasant woman.
In the same chapter, the description of the beauty of Demushka (“How written Demushka was”) is based on the text of the glorification of the groom; and here Nekrasov makes a significant reduction in the text.
Chapter IV ("Demushka") is largely built on the basis of the funeral lamentations of Irina Fedosova (from the collection of Barsov). Often Nekrasov uses a specific lamentation text; but it is the text that is important here, which in itself allows us to unfold the picture of peasant life. In addition, we learn in this way about the fact of the existence of funeral lamentations among the peasantry. Such use of folklore, in turn, has a dual meaning: firstly, the author selects the most powerful and artistically striking data and thereby increases the emotionality and figurativeness of his work, and secondly, the folklore of the work makes it more accessible to the peasant (and generally democratic ) audience, and it is precisely this orientation towards a democratic audience that is characteristic of Nekrasov. Particularly significant here are the borrowings from Lament for the Elder, one of the most acute in social terms. At the same time, Nekrasov freely handles the material and at the same time modifies it somewhat. Particularly significant is the comparison of the curse to the judges by Nekrasov and Irina Fedosova. Irina Fedosova ends Lament for the Elder as follows:
You will not fall on the water, not on the ground.
You are not on God's church, on a construction site,
You fall down, burn my tears,
You are an adversary to this villain,
Yes, you are right to the zealous heart,
Yes, please, God, Lord,
For decay to come on his colorful dress,
Like madness in a riot would have a little head.
Give me more, God, Lord,
To his house is a foolish wife,
to produce foolish children,
Hear, Lord, my sinful prayers
Accept, Lord, you are the tears of small children ...
From Nekrasov:
villain! Executioners!
Drop my tears
Not on land, not on water,
Not to the Lord's temple.
Fall right on your heart
My villain!
Give me, God, Lord,
So that decay comes on a dress,
Madness not a head
My villain!
his foolish wife
Let's go, foolish children!
Accept, hear, Lord,
Prayers, mother's tears,
Punish the villain!
And here Nekrasov, following his rule (“so that the words are crowded”), significantly reduces the folklore text, without reducing, however, the number of lines: each line is much shorter than that of Irina Fedosova, since it is freed from “ballast” words . As a result, the rhythm changes
Irina Fedosova, with great inner strength, the presentation is slow and therefore relatively little stressed, while Nekrasov’s short lines with numerous exclamations just create great emotional tension (and here male clauses have the same meaning). In addition, having picked up the word “villain” from Irina Fedosova’s lamentation, Nekrasov, by repeating this word four times, turns it into a leitmotif of the whole curse, especially since this word sounds at the very beginning, and then at the end of each semantic segment. Here, too, the social significance of the text is emphasized and enhanced.
In chapter V (The She-Wolf), besides some minor borrowings, the following parallel can be noted:
From Nekrasov:
On Demin's grave
I lived day and night.
Prayed for the deceased
Grieved for parents:
Are you afraid of my dogs?
Are you ashamed of my family? -
Oh, no, dear, no!
Your dogs are not afraid.
Your family is not ashamed.
And go forty miles
Tell your troubles
Ask your troubles -
It's a pity to drive a beetle!
We should have come a long time ago
Yes, we thought that:
We will come - you will cry,
Let's go - you will cry!
A song quite similar in motives and in some details was recorded
Shane in the Pskov province:
Lower the sun to walk
Nearby brother to ride,
Do not visit me.
Al yon do not know the path?
Al yon paths do not calm down?
Al yon good horse not manage?
Is Al Yong ashamed of my family?
Is Al Yong afraid of my dogs?
Hey, sister-in-law!
I'm not afraid of your dogs
I'm not ashamed of your family either.
I will come - and you cry,
I'll go - and you sob
Matryona's lamentation highlighted by Nekrasov in a special size (choreic)
Timofeevna (“I went to the fast river”), not being an arrangement of any one text, echoes the funeral lamentations for parents, which are available both in Rybnikov and in the collection of Barsov.
In chapter VI ("A Difficult Year"), depicting the situation of a soldier, Nekrasov uses funeral lamentations from the collection of Barsov, thus changing the application of the text. This change does not create, however, improbability, since the position of the soldier's wife was essentially similar to that of the widow.
From Nekrasov:
hungry
Orphans are standing
In front of me... Unkindly
The family is looking at them.
They are noisy in the house
On the street pugnacious,
Gluttons at the table...
And they began to pinch them,
Bang on the head...
Shut up, soldier mother!
At Barsov:
Little children will be orphans,
There will be foolish kids on the street,
In the hut, the orphans are troublesome,
At the table there will be children traveling;
After all, uncles will walk around the hut
And it's not fun to look at the kids,
They are rude to them and talk;
They will twitch the victorious children,
To beat the heads of orphans in a riot...
The principles of processing, as we see, are the same as above.
Thus, The Peasant Woman (especially some of its chapters) is a kind of mosaic of song materials, with which Nekrasov handles very freely, at the same time, however, he is very careful about individual elements. All this mosaic is subordinated to one main task - to show the severity of the position of a woman: where the material is sharp enough, the poet uses it almost exactly, where this sharpness is not enough, he resorts to processing and changes. At the same time, Nekrasov also modifies folklore material in an artistic sense: using the means of folklore, he at the same time strives to streamline the material and to enhance its artistic expressiveness.
In other chapters (“The Last Child” and “A Feast for the Whole World”), we will no longer see such a folklore and song mosaic. In particular, in the chapter "A feast for the whole world"
Nekrasov goes the other way. Here we will find a number of "songs", but these songs are not folklore, but created by Nekrasov himself in the style of folklore. It is to these songs that Nekrasov gives a particularly sharp social character, and they can be called propaganda. These are the songs "Veselaya" ("Eat prison, Yasha!
There is no milk")," Corvee "(" Poor, unkempt Kalinushka ")," Hungry "
(“It’s standing - a man, swaying”), “Soldier’s” (“The light is sickening, there is no truth”),
“Salty (“No one is like God!”). In part, perhaps, one of Grisha's songs - "Rus" ("You are poor, you are rich") can also be attributed here; the rest of Grisha's songs are clearly of a literary nature, "Rus" is distinguished by comparative simplicity.
For none of these songs it is possible to point to a direct source in folklore; there are no even relatively close analogies. Only in the most general terms can we say that among folklore songs there are songs depicting the severity of serfdom, the severity of soldiery, etc.
However, Nekrasov's songs differ from folklore ones in greater clarity and sharpness of the image. Nekrasov's task is not to follow folklore, to reproduce folklore samples, but to, using folklore techniques and thereby making his works accessible to the peasantry, influence the peasant consciousness, awaken and clarify it, create new works that could enter into song usage and thus become a means of propagating revolutionary ideas (it is not for nothing that these songs were subjected to censorship cuts and outright prohibition).
The songs "Veselaya", "Veselaya" and "Pakhomushka" are dedicated to depicting serfdom. These songs can be compared with, for example, folk songs:
That our heads are gone
For the boyars, for the thieves!
Chasing the old, chasing the small
To work early
And with, the work is late ...
How to take father and mother across the Volga,
Forge a big brother into soldiers,
And cut the middle brother into a lackey,
And the little brother - in the guards ...
Ruined our side
Villain, boyar, master,
How did he choose, the villain,
Our young guys
In the soldiers
And us red girls
in the servants,
Young young women
In the feeders
And mothers and fathers
To work...
We'll arrive early in the morning.
Made by whip;
Let's become an excuse
They tell us to undress;
The shirts were taken off the shoulders,
They started hurting us...
The songs "Hungry" and "Salty" depict the extreme poverty and hunger of the peasantry with extremely sharp features. The theme of poverty and hunger is also found in folklore songs, but the images used are different from those of Nekrasov.
Finally, "Soldatskaya" evilly depicts the position of a retired soldier walking "in the world, in the world." Soldiers are often depicted in folklore songs in the most gloomy colors (in particular, in recruit lamentations).
Because of the forest, the dark forest,
Because of the green garden
The clear sun came out.
What kind of sun is the white king.
Leads a little power
He is not small, not great -
One and a half thousand regiments.
They walked, walked, cried,
On the knees fell:
“You, father, are our white king!
He starved us to death.
Hungry, cold! .. "
Thus, the themes and moods of Nekrasov's songs were close and understandable to the peasantry; in particular, they are characteristic of peasant folklore. In the design, Nekrasov also gives his songs a character close to folk songs (partly lively peasant speech). So,
"Merry" is built on the repetition at the end of each stanza of the words: "It is glorious for the people to live in holy Russia!". There are many diminutive and caressing forms in "Barshchinnaya", "Hungry" and "Pakhomushka" (Kalinushka, back, matushka,
Pankratushka, Pakhomushka, cow, little head), a couplet about three Matryonas and Luka with Peter is inserted into the "Soldier's" (cf. Pushkin's "Matchmaker Ivan, how we will drink").
At the same time, it is extremely characteristic that the most famous types of folklore - epics and historical songs, fairy tales and legends - are presented in
Nekrasov is relatively small: it is not folklore exoticism that attracts him
(historical, adventurous or fantastic), but the truth of peasant life, reflected in everyday songs. However, in the words of Saveliy about the heroism of the peasant, there is undoubtedly an echo of the epic about Svyatogor and earthly cravings:
Do you think, Matryonushka,
The man is not a hero?
And his life is not military,
And death is not written for him
In battle - a hero!
He raised it,
For now, terrible cravings
Yes, he went into the ground up to his chest
With an effort! By his face
Not tears - blood flows ...
The song "Peasant's Sin" ("Ammiral the widower walked the seas") is based on folklore material. Neither its subject matter, nor its style, nor the song meter have anything to do with epics, and there is not a single similar epics in the known material. But this song, in its type, is to some extent analogous to later historical songs of the 18th and 19th centuries; For example,
“A young soldier is standing on the clock” - exactly the same rhythm (a similar time signature was used, for example, by Koltsov in his songs - cf. “What, dense forest, thoughtful,” etc.). On the same topic, "Peasant sin" is extremely close to the serfs, and there is no doubt that similar stories about the "will" betrayed by one person or another, about destroyed wills - "free" were widespread. Nekrasov, on the other hand, uses this tradition in a broader sense to emphasize the severity of Judas' sin, that is, betrayal.
The legend "About two great sinners", which is a direct call for reprisal against the landowners, is also based on folklore material.
The character of the legend also has the "Woman's Parable" (and Matryona Timofeevna conveys it as the story of the "holy old woman"). For this parable, Nekrasov used part of the "Lament for the clerk" from "Lamentations of the Northern Territory"
Barsova.
Relatively richly represented in the poem are small types of folklore - riddles, proverbs, signs and sayings. The saturation of these works gives the poem a particularly clear folklore flavor. All Nekrasov's riddles are given, however, not in the form of riddles proper, but in the form of metaphors or comparisons, with the naming of clues ("the castle is a faithful dog", etc.). Proverbs, as a rule, have a brightly colored social character -
“Praise the grass in a haystack, and the master in a coffin”, “They (gentlemen) boil in a cauldron, and we lay firewood.” Also noteworthy is the abundance of folk signs and beliefs in the text.
In some cases, the author uses techniques typical of folklore: parallelism in the chapter "Demushka" - mother swallow; negative comparisons -
“It is not violent winds that blow, it is not mother earth that sways - it makes noise, sings, swears, sways, wallows, fights and kisses the people at the holiday”, etc .; permanent epithets - "frequent stars", "red girl", etc.; repetitions and folklore formulas - "Whether they walked for a long time, whether they were short, whether they went close, how far."
In general, “Who should live well in Russia” really takes on the character
"folk book", as Nekrasov wanted, according to Gleb
Uspensky. This is a poem about "the people" and for the "people", a poem in which the author acts as a defender of "people's (peasant) interests.
Let's summarize our observations.
I. Nekrasov uses folklore material for various purposes. On the one hand, folklore itself is an element of everyday life, and it is for display, for a more complete depiction of everyday life, that it is included in Nekrasov's works. On the other hand, the folklore nature of the work makes it more accessible to the peasant audience.
II. In the poem "To whom in Russia it is good to live" folklore material is used
Nekrasov in various ways. He either includes in the work a specific text of lamentations or songs taken from book sources, or modifies folklore material, increasing its emotionality and pictorial quality, or creates his own works, using only folklore style.
III. Various folklore genres are far from equally used
Nekrasov. His wedding and funeral lamentations and everyday lyrical songs are especially richly represented, which made it possible to show the difficult aspects of the life of the peasantry most vividly and effectively.
IV. Relatively richly represented in the poem are small types of folklore (riddles, proverbs and sayings), which gives the poem a special folklore flavor, while epics and historical songs, fairy tales and legends are relatively few.
V. All of Nekrasov's work on the use of folklore material is subordinated to the task of giving the most artistically and ideologically strongest text.
Nekrasov seeks to give a vivid and emotionally effective image of peasant life, to arouse sympathy for the peasantry, to awaken the desire to fight for peasant happiness. This task also determines the selection of the most complete material in the artistic and social sense and its processing.
It is in this that the attitude of the revolutionary democrat of the sixties is manifested: not the rejection of folklore, not the worship of it, but the active and actual use of the valuable in folklore and the creation of new values on the basis of it. And it is precisely this active attitude to folklore, not subordination to it, but mastery of it, that Nekrasov's poetry teaches us.
List of used literature:
1. Library of world literature for children. Moscow, ed. "Children's Literature", 1981
2. N.P. Andreev. Folklore in Nekrasov's poetry - Journal of Literary Studies, 1936 No. 7.
3. Eleonsky S.F. Literature and folk art. Handbook for secondary school teachers. Moscow, 1956
4. Besedina T.A. The study of the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "Who is it good to live in Russia" at school. Vologda, 1974
5. “The origins of the great poem (N.A. Nekrasov “Who should live well in Russia”)”.
Yaroslavl, 1962
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ed. 2nd, vol. III, p. 27, no. 15, Lamentation from the Petrozavodsk district
Clause - the final syllables of a phrase or poetic line, starting with the last stressed syllable.
Rybnikov, ed. 2nd, vol. III, p. 38
Barsov. "Lamentations of the Northern Territory", part I, St. Petersburg .. 1872, p. 288.
"Laments of the Northern Territory", part I, St. Petersburg .. 1872, p. 17,
Shane. "Great Russian in his songs ... etc.", vol. I. in. I, No. 853.
Shane. "Great Russian in his songs ... etc.", vol. I. in. I, No. 852
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So, the basis of the poem is the people's view of the world. To recreate a truly folk point of view, Nekrasov turns to folk culture. In the 1860s and 1870s, Russian folklore studies experienced a stormy surge, just at that time the activities of the remarkable Russian folklorists A.N. Afanasyev, E.V. Barsov, F.I. Buslaev, P.N. Dal, who collected and published collections of folk songs, lamentations, proverbs, riddles. Nekrasov actively used these materials in the poem.
But Nekrasov's knowledge of folk culture was not only bookish, he had a lot and closely communicated with the people from childhood. It is well known that as a boy he liked to play with peasant boys; in his mature years, he also spent a lot of time in the countryside - in the summer he came to the Yaroslavl and Vladimir provinces, hunted a lot (Nekrasov was a passionate hunter), while hunting he often stopped in peasant huts. It is obvious that folk speech, proverbs and sayings were at his hearing.
Folk songs, proverbs and sayings are introduced into the poem "To whom it is good to live in Russia". The poem even opens with a riddle (“In what year - count, / In what land - guess ...”), to which a guess is immediately given: this is Russia in the post-reform period, since seven “temporarily liable”, that is, peasants, converged on the pillar path , obliged after the reform of 1861 to perform some duties in favor of the landowner. Inserting folk genres into the poem, Nekrasov usually creatively reworked them, however, he used some texts - for example, a song about a hateful husband in the chapter "Peasant Woman", - he used without changes. And what is especially interesting is that folk and author's texts sounded in unison without destroying the artistic integrity of the poem.
In the poem "To whom it is good to live in Russia", reality and fantasy coexist freely, although the concentration of the fantastic falls on the first chapter. It is here that the talking chiffchaff appears, presenting the wanderers with a self-collected tablecloth, a raven praying to the devil, seven laughing owls who flocked to look at the peasants. Ho soon fantastic elements completely disappear from the pages of the poem.
Here the warbler warns the peasants not to ask the self-collection tablecloth for more than the womb can bear:
If you ask more
And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third be trouble!
Nekrasov uses a characteristic fairy-tale technique here - the warbler imposes a ban on the peasants. The ban and its violation are the basis of many Russian folk tales, the adventures of the main characters of the tale just begin after they cross the cherished line. Brother Ivanushka drank water from a hoof - and turned into a kid. Ivan Tsarevich burned the skin of the Frog Princess - and went to look for his wife to distant lands. The cockerel looked out the window - and the fox took it away.
The ban on the warbler in the poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” is never violated, Nekrasov seems to forget about it altogether; the self-assembled tablecloth generously treats the peasants for a long time, but in the last chapter, “A Feast for the Whole World”, it also disappears. In the chapter "Peasant Woman" there is a scene parallel to what happened in the "Prologue" - one of the seven wanderers, Roman, frees the "small lark" entangled in flax, the freed lark soars up. But this time the peasants do not receive anything as a reward, they have long been living and acting not in a magical, but in the real space of Russian reality. The rejection of fantasy was fundamental for Nekrasov, the reader should not confuse the "lie" of a fairy tale with the "truth" of life.
The folklore flavor is enhanced with the help of sacred (that is, sacred, mystical) numbers - seven men and seven owls act in the poem, there are three main storytellers about happiness - a priest, a landowner and a peasant woman, twelve robbers are mentioned in the "Legend of the Two Great Sinners". Nekrasov constantly used both speech turns and the style of folk speech - diminutive suffixes, syntactic constructions characteristic of folklore, stable epithets, comparisons, metaphors.
It is interesting that Nekrasov's contemporaries often did not want to recognize the folk origins of his poem, accusing the author of a false understanding of the folk spirit, arguing that some proverbs and songs "the poet himself came up with for the peasants." But just those songs and proverbs that critics pointed out as "invented" were found in folklore collections. At the same time, Nekrasov's reproaches of pseudo-nationality had their own reasons - it is simply impossible to completely hide behind the people's gaze, to completely renounce oneself, one's vision in a work of art. This view, these predilections, regardless of the will of the author, were reflected both in the selection of material and in the choice of characters.
Nekrasov created his own myth about the people. This is a whole national cosmos with its righteous and sinners, its own concepts of good, evil, truth, which often do not coincide with Christian ones.
A motif is a semantic element that is repeated within a series of works. The poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia” is an epic depicting life in all its fullness and diversity, it shows the life of the entire Russian people, unthinkable without folklore. In his poem, Nekrasov took a lot from folk art, but also brought a lot into it.
Folklore in the poem is epics, proverbs, fairy tales and fairy-tale characters, songs, fables. In the prologue, Nekrasov used folklore motifs and images: a chiffchaff (bird of happiness), a self-made tablecloth, a clumsy Durandikha (witch), a goblin - a cow with a bell - characters of fairy tales; a gray hare, a cunning fox, a raven are the heroes of fables; and the devil is both a fairy-tale and infernal character. The men-heroes themselves are the heroes of epics and fairy tales. Also in the prologue there are magical, sacred numbers - seven and three: seven men, seven owls, seven trees, fourteen candles (two sevens).
Fourteen candles!
…
By the fire itself
Sits and prays...
A candle is a Christian, sacred motive, and a fire is a kind of pagan motive. These two motifs are closely connected with the people, with people's life and creativity. Peasants are Christians by faith (in the poem there is a song that an angel sings - “Among the world”), but pagan motifs are present in their holidays (as in folklore).
Seven men - traditional heroes of Russian fairy tales - set off on a journey in search of happiness.
On their way, the men meet the priest. Pop himself says that the peasants call him a "breed of a foal", compose jokey tales and obscene songs about him. The very conversation of the peasants with the priest is reminiscent of Pushkin's fairy tale "About the priest and his worker Balda." Pop talks about the difficult life of the peasants. And in his story, Nekrasov mentions a folk omen (a cool rainbow) and himself gives a note.
At the end of the chapter, Nekrasov uses the folk apocrypha:
So with a goat beard
Walked the world before
than the forefather Adam,
And it's considered a fool
And now the goat! ..
In the subsequent chapters (“Country Fair” and “Drunken Night”), the people themselves seemed to speak. Each replica speaks of a certain character, each hero speaks a folk language, each has a bright and individual speech. The images of peasants convey a variety of situations and destinies.
At the end of the chapter, popular popular popular prints are mentioned - “jester Balakirev” and “English milord”.
A farce arrived at the fair, showing a comedy with Petrushka, with a goat drummer and not with a simple hurdy-gurdy, but with real music. This comedy is a folk art. Before talking about the comedy, Nekrasov mentions Gogol, who in Dead Souls has a footman Petrushka (a man from the people who read about chemistry).
Wishful, quarterly
Not in the eyebrow, but right in the eye!
Here Nekrasov used a folk proverb.
In "Drunk Night" Nekrasov uses a folk verse:
In the village of Bosov
Yakim Nagoi lives
He works to death
Drinks half to death!
And Ivan's phrase “I want to sleep” is taken from a wedding song.
The chapter “Peasant Woman” is built on abundant folklore material. To write this chapter and the entire poem, Nekrasov studied the volume “Lamentations of the Northern Territory”, collected by Barsov, the main part of which was the lamentations of the famous folk poetess Fedosova.
Matrena Timofeevna is probably the main folk image of the poem. Matrena tells about her life from her own face, she herself tells her story. Matrena Timofeevna is Nekrasov's reasoner, she is the voice of the people, the voice of a Russian woman. Matrena's song conveys the typicality of the phenomena occurring among the people. There is also a choir - the voice of the people.
A song is a soul, and Matryona pours out her soul through songs. “Peasant woman” is a peasant folk soul. With the appearance of Plyushkin, Gogol begins to appear lyrical digressions, and with Nekrasov, with the appearance of Matryona, songs appear, because the poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” is a folk poem.
Matryona Timofeevna can be compared with Savely. They are both heroic examples. Saveliy is a Holy Russian hero, the hero of folk tales and epics.
Also, many songs appear in the last chapter of the poem - "Feast - for the whole world." In the songs “About two great sinners”, “Peasant's sin”, the image of God, sin appears. The content of the songs correlates with the state of mind of the people, over time. And yet the poem ends with good times and good songs.
Thus, it turns out that the poem “To whom it is good to live in Russia” is a folk poem and for the people. A touch of nationality is given to it by the language of the peasants, songs, proverbs, heroes of fairy tales and epics. K. I. Chukovsky said this about Nekrasov: “This storyteller strangely does not like to talk and sings wherever possible.”
Thanks to the motives of folk art, Nekrasov created the only folk epic in Russian literature.
